The News for Chinese Expands into Three Editions

There are quite a few Chinese language news media in the Bay Area, given the large number of the Chinese-speaking population here. However, the News for Chinese is the only one concentrating on local news. Now the six-year-old community newspaper is expanding into three regional editions.

Starting this February, the bi-weeily community newspaper will come in Peninsula, South Bay, and East Bay editions, versus two editions in the past six years. The South Bay and the East Bay used to share one edition.

“It makes business sense to print different editions for the South Bay and the East Bay,” said Brian Ho, president of the News for Chinese. “If a new pre-school in Cupertino advertises in our paper, the ad doesn’t have to be seen in Fremont. Separating the South Bay from the East Bay will give our ads a stronger focus on the target audience.”

According to Ho, advertising revenue of the News for Chinese currently suffices to cover the expenses of the free community newspaper. While most newspapers in all languages are declining as a result of easy access to information on line, the News for Chinese is growing.

Besides the bi-weekly newspapers in print and a website with daily updates, the News for Chinese produces radio shows which air from 6 to 7 pm, Monday through Friday. The Chinese news organization also provides three minutes of local news broadcast for Crossings TV, an Asian American TV channel, on a weekly basis.

“Multimedia is the way to go in the Internet era,” Ho said.

Ho’s two major competitors, the World Journal and the Sing Tao Daily, are also going multimedia. However, Ho differentiates the News for Chinese from those two Chinese newspapers by his “local news only” approach. Unlike those two bigger Chinese newspapers, which still charge for subscriptions, the free News for Chinese doesn’t run news stories from China or Taiwan.

“Nowadays you can easily read Asian news on line,” said Ho. “So we just focus on local news. This is the way we do our branding.”

In terms of branding, Ho calls Patch a successful example.

“Now many people immediately think of local news when they hear Patch.com,” said Ho. “I want the same for the News for Chinese. I hope someday Chinese-speaking Americans will all associate the News for Chinese with local news, too.”

It’s Ho’s dream to make the News for Chinese a Chinese version of Patch.com, with a website for each large Chinese community across America.

“We share the same business model with Patch.com, and it’s a promising business model,” said Ho. “Though fewer and fewer people will pay for newspapers, free community news will always have an audience. If you provide good content, you will attract many readers. Then advertising will come.”

Optimistic about profitability from advertising, Ho added, “Just speaking of Chinese readers in the Bay Area, if half of the 600,000 Chinese residents here prefer reading Chinese over English, it’s already a big market. Not only local Chinese businesses will advertise to this market. Mainstream businesses want to enter this market, too.”

The next step for the News for Chinese, according to Ho, is to add a San Francisco edition. He said it will most likely happen by the end of this year.

Photo credit: Brian Ho